LEARN ENGLISH AT HOME: How to choose a textbook

I need a book on how to be a gentleman. I need to know my -- hi. James, from EngVid.

This book is called "How to Be a Gentleman", by John Bridges. It's sort of like a textbook.

And what is a textbook? A textbook is a book designed to teach you something with exercises

that will bring you from one place to another. So when you're finished doing the textbook,

you should learn a skill. Unlike a book that you read for enjoyment, which is fun -- you

enjoy; you put away -- a textbook is usually used in schools to teach skills. And through

exercises and tests, you master it. This is sort of like a textbook, but it's a little

bit fun.

My job today is to do something we haven't done before. You come to EngVid to learn English,

which is true, and this is great. But you could also buy books outside. I'm sure some

of you have bought books outside. When I teach, some of my students, before they go back to

their countries, they say, "Teacher, I need a book to help me with my grammar or my English."

One of my colleagues at EngVid has done a lesson. You should check it out. It's about

books you should read. But this one is specific. This is on textbooks, the books that teachers

may use in schools or you can buy by yourself, which will help you increase on your IELTS,

on your TOEFL, or on your grammar or vocabulary. And these are books designed for people who

are learning English as a second language, okay? And that's what this lesson is today.

"How to pick a good textbook." So see, gentlemen? How to pick a good textbook, a textbook that

would help you.

I can give you ten books that I think are good textbooks. But I am not you, and I'm

not your teacher -- well, I am. I know. I'm sorry. I like you, too. Okay, we love each

other. But I mean, I'm not there to help you. If I were sitting with you, talking to you,

I'd say, "You know what? This book isn't good for you. This book is good for you." And because

I wanna help you -- see, I said "wanna". See that's a grammar thing. Because I want to

help you, I'm going to give you something that you can use to find a textbook for yourself.

There are probably many books in your country, and you don't know which is a good one. I

don't want you to waste your money, and I want you to learn. Okay? So let's go to "How

to Pick a Good Textbook".

I found there were approximately ten points that you should have when you're going to

buy a textbook. They can be very expensive and very helpful, okay? If you pick the wrong

one, though, it's not a good use of your money, and it will take time -- valuable time from

your learning.

The first thing you should look at is when was the book made? If the book is old -- it

is 20 years old; it's not a good book because they probably don't talk about computers or

laptops or email and addressing any of that. And you're going to be looking at books where

you're saying, "Well, golly gee, sir, I think the rain on the plain in Spain is mainly..."

-- it's out-of-date. We call something "out-of-date". If the book is over ten years old -- probably

not good to use, right? Probably want to say away. Get a more up-to-date book, one with

more modern examples that will talk about technologies you're using today. Okay?

The next one is what do you need? I don't know how many students come to me and say

they want to listen -- get better hearing skills. And then they tell me how they're

watching the news. And they're level two or three. And I'm like, "Stop immediately!" You

shouldn't be watching the news until you have 80 percent of the language. It's just too

much for you. What do you need it for? "Well, Teacher, I want to watch my TV program." Well,

watch your TV program. "What do you need" is what you work on. If you need IELTS or

TOEFL, don't use a basic grammar book. You should be high enough that you can use the

books that you're testing for. What do you need? Do you need it for work? Then you need

technical books, books that work specifically with technical language or formal language.

Are you going on vacation? Then, you need a book with pictures and drawings and fun

stuff. Heck, heck, you can even watch TV programs for children. What do you need? So in a textbook,

look at what do you need, and the textbook addresses -- when we say "address", it's working

towards what you need, not what you think your friend has or someone would tell you.

Third, drawings or illustrations. I know you're going to say, "I'm not a child." That's not

the point. If I do this, you know I'm hungry. If I go like this, you know I'm thirsty. An

illustration helps to make things easier for you. If English is not your first language

-- and I was studying Spanish. I found that sometimes a picture beside the words made

it come to my head. "Cenar" or "cenar" is "dinner" in Spanish. When I saw potato, chicken,

and vegetables, and the clock saying six o'clock, and it said, "Time for esta cena", I went,

"Oh, this is dinner! Got it! I understand completely." So a good text will have some

illustrations, not be all words because we are creatures who use our eyes and our ears

and our mouths to communicate. Just looking with just the words is not enough for all

people, okay?

Next, exercises. I can say, "Como se dice en Español?" And it means, okay, "What does

this mean in Spanish or how do you say this in Spanish." Great. But if I say that, and

I don't give you any exercises -- and you'll notice in EngVid, at the end of almost every

video we have, there is a quiz. Something for you to do to test if you've learned. You

should have exercises. If they just give you information and say, "This is this, and this

is this", really, it's no good because it's the practice. The practice makes language

stay in your head. So it needs to have some exercises. One page or two to help you master

or get comfortable with it. And you can go and check, why was this different than this?

Because two examples does not tell you why there are three examples, and they're all

different. You sometimes need some -- you know, more to go, "Oh, I understand, and I

see." In this situation or in this area, I need this, and in this area, I need this.

Cool? So you should have multiple exercises.

More than one method. What does that mean? As I said before, some people are what we

call auditory students. They need to hear information to learn. I'm visual. If I see

a picture, I see the words on the paper, I understand more than when someone explains

it to me. When they explain, sometimes I just go [blinks] because I'm waiting for the picture

to come, and they won't give me a picture. So I'm just blinking -- this is called "blinking".

Blink, blink, until the picture comes. Okay? Well, some people just hear, and bam, bam,

bam, thank you, ma'am. They understand everything. But a picture, they go, "What is this? I'm

so confused!" Okay? So it should have more than one method. And that's why I said up

here, illustrated. But it can also be a conversation. They could have different methods, conversation,

questions, definitions, and pictures. So each person's got a different way of learning or

learning style or strategy, they can learn differently. We all learn differently. And

sometimes, a combination is needed. And a good textbook knows that, and puts it in there,

cool?

So we talked about building, okay? And how you start from the base and work up. Another

method of building is the text should be able to be used by one or more people. What do

I mean? Well, here's my pal. I almost forgot him. Little sausage guy. Mr. E! He's a superhero.

Mr. E is here. Mr. E made -- he looks a little straight today. Straightened him out. Mr.

E may study by himself. He has no friends. He lives in Taiwan. He has no friends. He

smells bad. Worm with BO. Who knew? So he has to study by himself. But maybe one day

he gets a friend. Me, James. A good textbook will know that you might study in a classroom

environment with many people or one-on-one or with a partner. And it tries to build exercises

-- as I said over here, like, one might be a conversation one where one partner says

one thing, the other partner says the other, and they can see how it relates. Or a group

exercise. I gave you one in one of the three methods to learn English, or three tricks,

where you pull from the hat. Seven people pull from the hat and challenge each other.

That way, you can all learn English together and make each other better, right? So you

can do that with a good text. It will have these exercises. So it might say "with your

group" -- don't look at that one. "With your partner" -- do that one. "By yourself" -- okay?

So it builds, so you can incorporate a group. Have your own class, so to speak.

Next, I'm going to change this up a little bit because I made a little bit of a mistake.

And that's my fault. I want to go to context. If you have a good text, it will use grammar

and vocabulary and context. It's nice to get a book that gives you 150 words you should

use. It's much better to have a book that gives you the context and tells you how regularly

these words are used. Same with the grammar. When do you want to say "wanna" -- like I

said earlier. Remember I said it earlier? "I wanna" versus "want to" -- when it is acceptable?

Using it in the correct context tells you when you can use it and get the most effectiveness

out of your English when you use it in the country or when you want to use it at work.

We talked about bar and business English. This is the same thing. Context -- when? Okay?

If you do that -- and a good text has all of these things -- No. 9, which I really like,

which this should be No. 9, it'll have a final test or a unit test. So you'll do multiple

exercises, then practice, and then there'll be a test. Once again, I go back to EngVid.

I'm sorry if I'm promoting it. It's just -- it's a fact. You watch the video; you get a test;

you know how well you're doing; you know your progress -- if you're getting better and better,

right? That's what a good text will have. It'll have unit tests so you can give some

of the information, and then final tests to see if you've mastered the book. If you have

all of that together, that's a book you want to pay the money. If it's 20 rupee, 20 dollars,

20 euro, pay the money. It's worth it. What it will give you in education is more than

you can get by complaining about how much money things cost. Okay?

One thing I say -- and some students don't understand this part -- a very good text,

a very, very good text -- No. 10 should be this one -- promotes culture. You cannot learn

a language and not learn the culture and be truly effective. A good text will put the

culture with the book with the context with the exercises, so you can become more aware

of what's appropriate and not appropriate. And "appropriate", I mean here, by what is

right or not right to do in a culture. It's like learning to drive a car. If you learn

how to drive the car, and you don't know the rules of the road, you're going to get hurt.

Same goes with English, okay? You know the culture, the context, the language, and use

them together, you'll get from point A to point B safely and have a really good trip.

All right?

Now, last thing I want to bring to your attention about this is -- and Mr. E reminded me by

putting a box here -- "a good text will" -- "it will tell you what you will learn." Like I

said when I said with this. We usually start off -- when I start with you, I say, "Today

we're going to work on this." Okay? And I try and give you an outline why you should

take it. Right? The same goes here. "It will tell you what you're going to learn and how

it will help you." Right? You're here to learn TOEFL. "This book will teach you the following

TOEFL concepts and how you can do this on the test." Boom. You know if you should get

the book or not. That goes back to need. Second, "it will show you progress", how you are getting

better. You'll notice the exercises are getting a little bit more difficult, but you're able

to do them, okay? And it "will be easy for you to follow", so you can always step back

and go forward. It's not so difficult you need somebody from NASA -- you know, space

agency -- to come and explain the rules to you. I usually recommend two books to my grammar

students. One is -- I'll tell you right now - "Grammar in Use". And the other one was

an Azar book on grammar. And they go, "Why, teacher? Why two books on same subject?" I

go, "Very simple." See, I use bad English. When I pretend to be a student, you always

know. I say, "Why, teacher? Why English two subject?" Okay. That's the student. Very easy.

The "Grammar in Use" is very basic, but it doesn't have a lot of exercises. That's why

it's not No. 1. It's very basic. It's easy for students to understand, right? It's easy

to follow. But not enough exercises. You don't get the practice required to master it. But

the Azar book has four or five pages of exercises, but I used to get tired of students coming

to me every day going, "I don't understand it. I don't understand it." So I went, "If

you buy both books, read this book first, and then do the exercises from this. And at

the end of it, you have a perfect book." Very expensive, but it works, okay? But if you

do this, you don't need to do what I told you, the two-book solution. You can find a

book that works for you. And after all, I'm doing this for you. You should do this for you.

I hope I haven't been too serious, but textbooks are usually dry and what have you. And I really

want you to get the best out. I'm thinking about something else I'll hopefully be able

to get together for you that will help you in other ways, but this should be the one

you use. This will help you right now. It'll save you time, money, energy. It will lead

you to a fun English experience, okay?

Mr. E, this was a textbook execution on how to teach a lesson and about books. I shall

take my leave of you. But before I go, as always, you need to go to www.engvid.com,

where "eng" stands for "English" and "vid" stands for "video", where you can find myself

and other teachers who are looking forward to helping you. And before I forget, especially

if you're on YouTube -- I'm looking around he. There's a button. Subscribe. Do it already.

All right? Down. The button is down. See, I can't see on this. It's down. Subscribe,

and then go get the test. Okay? All right. Chao. Subscribe.